Open Ballot: The rumour mill (Win free Linux stuff!)

Posted at 3:51pm on Monday December 17th 2012

We've received a rather cryptic e-mail from Canonical's PR company:

"Canonical is kicking off the New Year with a bang, and launching a brand new Ubuntu product. We’ll be holding an exclusive event hosted by Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu project, to give full details of what we believe is the next generation of cross platform operating system."

Usually press releases get redirected to /dev/null, but a guy dropping off a brown envelope full of non-sequential £20 notes little bird told us that this is going to be interesting. However, we don't know any more than this.

So, dear podcast listeners, what do you think:

Have we been duped into over-hyping the release of Ubuntu 13.04?
Is this going to be the tablet that Unity's been crying out for?
Some form of cloudy-virtualised-desktop thingy?
Has the Ubuntu Phone finally got a hardware partner?
Are they joining forces with Apple to release iBuntu?
Something else?

Let us know your thoughts before we head off to the pub Thursday lunchtime (GMT) to drink away our sorrows record the podcast. When we find out what's going on (Jan 2nd), we'll send out glittering prizes (books and pin-badges) to everyone who guessed correctly.

Your comments

In Soviet Russia :-)

RussH (not verified) - December 20, 2012 @ 10:18pm

...Ubuntu runs YOU!

Its a tablet/phone hybrid OS

Anonymous Softie (not verified) - December 21, 2012 @ 6:08am

Sadly that is all we are seeing anymore, company after company slitting their own throats trying to ape Apple without a clue as to why Apple is popular (its a combination of high prices and branding making people feel elitist combined with a "so simple your dog could work it" design philosophy) so like cargo cults they copy the most obvious parts (horribly dumbed down UI, very high prices) without realizing it took Jobs decades to build the upscale feel to the brand, like slapping a $100K price tag on a Pinto and expecting it to outsell Porsche it just fails horribly.

So yeah, yet another tablet/phone/TV ripoff of everything Apple has been doing yet they'll probably throw "cloud" in there just because PHBs like that word so it'll be "cloudy" and of course will fail miserably and join the playbook and the Surface on the "who thought THAT was a good idea?" pile.

And yes I AM cynical, but have we seen ANYTHING ELSE but the same tired old "phone/tablet cloudy OS buzz 3.0" junk from anybody since Apple became the largest company on the planet?

Using a little detective work

Justifier (not verified) - December 21, 2012 @ 10:56pm

I reckon its an Ubuntu phone, to be released within a year in the UK.

p.s.

Justifier (not verified) - December 21, 2012 @ 10:58pm

Goodies would be nice, but how do you know its me?

New product hum

Secret_Hamster - December 24, 2012 @ 9:52am

Considering money appears to be in commodities these days, the OS/Software being the driver for differentiation.

I've got to say it's going to be a stream of platforms.

Phone
Tablet
Laptop

I'm Intrigued...

1roxtar (not verified) - December 25, 2012 @ 10:13pm

Perhaps they got a new WUBI to work under Windows 8, making Ubuntu "cross platform" and installable regardless of UEFI.

Ubuntu On Android

ElPenguino (not verified) - December 26, 2012 @ 3:03am

I think we'll see a full implementation of Ubuntu on Android. Perhaps the docking station and a minimum spec list for the hardware.

Going out of business

Dad2012 (not verified) - December 28, 2012 @ 2:05am

Can't trust anything from Canonical. The first people you should never trust is the person that says "Trust Me"!

WINE 2.0

Anonymous Penguin - December 31, 2012 @ 4:23am

I think they will create a distro that has native integration with Wine. Allowing users to access Windows games and applications on a native level... Although people will be using it more so for games.
>see Steam for Linux

retro chic

Bony Moronie (not verified) - January 2, 2013 @ 3:03pm

Mark Shuttleworth will unveil "Ubuntu Classic" - a return to the original orange and brown design colours.

Being retro is cool in 2013!

Aww shame

CrashLog (not verified) - January 2, 2013 @ 6:33pm

It's Ubuntu for phones. I was hoping to get some glittering prizes :(

I want one

I AM ZIMBO (not verified) - January 2, 2013 @ 8:03pm

Don't get me wrong i'm a big fan of android, but somehow it doesn't feel like real linux. Hopefully this may just be a step in the right direction, but if not theres always Plasma Active to look foreward to. for those interested the relevant adress is ww#w.ub#untu.co#m/#devices/pho#ne (without the #'s).

Phones!

TuxRadar - January 3, 2013 @ 1:43pm

Canonical have announced a phone operating system (check out the introduction here: ubuntu.com/devices/phone). Our intrepid reporter braved the London crowds and can confirm that the launch was accompanied by very delicious small hamburgers. We'll have more details in the next podcast.

Those of you that guessed correctly: stay tuned, we'll announce details for prize collection shortly.